April 24, 2020 “God pardons all sins save the evil tongue”    Zohar 53a on Metzorah

Flaunting his cupidity for political gain, Trump has been promoting the far-right’s campaign to end life-saving stay-at-home orders without, however, even a hint of strategy for containing the spread of Covid-19 when business-as-usual resumes. South Korea successfully mobilized its pharmaceutical industry to mass-produce tests back in January when Trump and his Fox stooges were still calling the epidemic a hoax. There, and in Germany and Japan, instituting a regimen of testing, contact tracing and quarantine greatly limited the spread of infection and safely permitted relaxation of lockdowns. Here, where unilaterally vacating stay-at-home orders will just re-propel this opportunistic virus, the cost in human suffering seems not to enter into Trump’s solely mercenary calculation.